Life for Dummies
by Depraved Sociopath
Summary: Kasumi came to America when she was 15. She never really adjusted too well.


None of the characters are mine, and I will never EVER pretend that they are. That would be...evil.  
  
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Life has been hard for me for...ever, I guess. It's just always been that way. I mean, I can't ever remember having had...fun, whatever that is. I mean...gag, this is sounding like some kind of sob story, or something that some demented pervert would think up to get girls. That's not what it is supposed to be.  
  
(In the case that someone IS reading this, sorry about my rambling. But you have to understand that the only real reason I'm writing this is to organize my thoughts. I don't expect anyone to read this, so I'm not tailoring it to any audience, real or imagined.)  
  
I came to the United States when I was fifteen. My parents moved here from Japan after my dad got a new job, and I've been living here ever since. I guess I've got some friends, but I don't really consider them such. I mean, don't get me wrong - they're nice people, and everything, but they don't really like me. They're just, you know, using me to feel better about their selves. I overheard one of them saying that one day in the showers after gym class, so I KNOW I'm not just making it up. Which is okay, I guess. To each their own. None of my business what they do to make themselves feel better. That's why I never stopped hanging out with them.   
  
I've never had a real boyfriend. Well, there was Daniel, but he hardly counts. All he did was use me for sex. Oh, and I don't know if anyone else knew this, but when I wouldn't put out, he would, for all intents and purposes, rape me. He would just keep pressuring me and pressuring me, eventually resorting to threats of a big, messy break-up, or telling the entire school what we'd done together, or such things. I would always give in, of course - I was lonely and afraid - and so it can't rightly be called rape, but...it sure feels the same when he's inside of you and all you can think about is keeping the tears from running down your face.  
  
On that same topic - the boyfriend, I mean - my younger sisters have always had real luck with the men. My youngest sister, Akane, had to beat them off with a stick during middle school - quite literally. Some of them still have scars. And my other younger sister, well, Nabiki's had men wrapped around her fingers since she was three. THAT didn't do anything for my loneliness, let me tell you. I guess it's just something wrong with me. All men want from me is sex, and nothing more.  
  
I never did learn to have fun like all the rest of the kids, either. I mean, when I was back in Japan still, I could go out with my girlfriends (I only had one, but it doesn't sound right saying 'girlfriend,' does it?) and have a good time any day of the week. But here, in America...the culture's just too different. That, and I never really got the "grand tour" of the town, either. No one ever offered to give it to me, and I wasn't about to go around by myself; I'm too self-conscious for that. So I would just stay inside during my free time. Usually doing chores. That was my fun.  
  
Akane and Nabiki would always bring their friends over, and there I'd be, vacuuming the living room or scrubbing the kitchen floor. "Does she ever do anything but clean?" the friends would ask. "Not really," my sisters would reply. "She's pretty much a live-in maid." Then they'd laugh and go up to the computer room, or down to the basement, and they'd leave a mess, expecting me to clean it up. Which I would unfailingly do. Because there was nothing else FOR me to do.  
  
Father was perpetually disappointed in me. He would always stand behind me, watching me while I would scrub the dishes or straighten his closet, and he would have this horrible look in his eyes, like he wanted me to be something more. (He never knew this, but I could always see him perfectly clearly, no matter what I was doing. The one perk of having to know what messes need cleaning up is the ability to know where the people making the messes are in the first place.) After staring at me for a minute or so, he would always go up to Akane's room and ask her to spar for a bit. I'm just not a martial artist. I never wanted to be.  
  
Mother...she drank because of me. I would come home from high school and find her sitting at the kitchen table with a glass of wine in one hand and a cigarette in the other. "Hey, Kasumi," she'd say to me. "The carpet needs shampooing. I dropped a glass of wine earlier." If it hadn't been for me doing all of the chores, she wouldn't have had any time to drink. But as it was, all she could do was drown out the real world with alcohol. That's the main reason I would cry myself to sleep each night.  
  
I prided myself on my grades. Straight As throughout my entire American high-school career, and I didn't even know the language perfectly for the first year or so. It's too bad that no one else ever noticed.  
  
I remember back in my junior year, Nabiki got caught with drugs. She was just experimenting due to her friends' influence, but I felt bad for her, so I took the wrap. I was never allowed to drive again, and Nabiki didn't even so much as thank me.  
  
I burned my arm once, cooking dinner. The yelp I let out as the hot pan scalded my flesh attracted the attention of my loving mother. "Are you okay?" she asked in her slurred manner. "Yes," I replied, "thank you, though." "Okay, then. Get back to dinner. I'm hungry." When the blisters appeared the next day, my father got the crazy idea into his head that I was back into drugs. I went to detox for a week before dad finally trusted the doctors' claims that there wasn't so much as Advil in my blood.  
  
So I graduated high school, finally. No more fucking high school. Oh, dear! That's the first time I've ever sworn!   
  
...Go figure.  
  
Anyway, I got accepted to Harvard, though I can't afford it, since my parents aren't helping me with college. I DID get a full-ride scholarship to the University of Illinois at Chicago, but...it's no Harvard, you know?  
  
Gah, I'm just bitching, now.   
  
I'd better end this soon anyway. I don't want to start crying again.  
  
So...that's it. I'm done, now. No fairy tale ending. That's how it works, though. The heroine doesn't always get the charming prince in the end, and the evil villain doesn't always get vanquished. Such is life. I'm proof. Or, at least, my corpse is.  
  
(The following was found pinned to the deceased's shirt. Blood had soaked the bottom half of the paper, but the writing was unmarred, being on the top half of the page.)  
  
The Last Will and Testament of Kasumi Tendo  
  
Everything I own will go to charity. The Tendo Clan can rot in hell.  
  
Kasumi Tendo  
  
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I was sitting at home, minding my own business, when I came across the online comic strip Avalon (Http://www.avalonhigh.com). I read it all, and the more recent strips (within the last year) got me into the mood to write something like this. Don't ask me why; they just did. It's a good read, though. I suggest you check it out. (Yes, YOU!)  
  
Now I'm still in the mood to write something dark, so I think I'll go over to another online comic strip, Megatokyo (Http://www.megatokyo.com), and check out some of their stuff. Maybe it'll give me some more good inspiration. Maybe it'll even get me in the mood to do some more work on To Know Pain. At the very least, I'll be able to peruse their l33t comix.   
  
~A Depraved Sociopath with Psychotic Tendencies 


End file.
